Molly Malone and Siobhan Ó Donndubháin shared the same house in downtown Dublin. They were students. Molly was studying marine biology, and Siobhan was writing a thesis on why the f**k Irish names were never spelt the way they were pronounced.

It was the feast of St Patrick, and a public holiday. In downtown Dublin, Molly and Siobhan had the day off from lectures and tutorials. They slept in, then got up and had a nice cup of tea. Then Molly went off to the beach to collect some cockles and mussels as samples for her study. Siobhan began typing up Chapter Seven of her thesis.